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MLB WORLD SERIES: RANGERS v CARDINALSOctober 18, 2011C.J. WilsonST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: Workout Day Q. It's going to be cold tomorrow, 32, 33 Fahrenheit, thereabouts. How big of a concern is that for you? How do you approach those kind of conditions, especially given the climate back in Texas you're used to? C.J. WILSON: Well, Texas and St. Louis have similar summer climates, it's humid, it's hot, so I guess the same thing if I was a pitcher here. I haven't really pitched in cold weather too often, but you wear sleeves and put on a jacket in the dugout and that's pretty much all you can do. I don't worry about it too much. Q. The team's determination, trying to reach the pinnacle of baseball, this is your second shot two years in a row. What do you sense in terms of the team's atmosphere and determination level? C.J. WILSON: Well, I think last year because we didn't really have a much of a pennant race, we had such a big gap between us and the Angels at the end of the season, the A's, as well, the season just sort of dragged on and we sort of knew we were going to the playoffs and all that stuff. But this year having a pennant race, I feel like it was much more focus towards winning the whole way through, and the season seemed to fly by. And now that we're in the playoffs again, we have the same goal we did last year, but the experience level that we have is a obviously a lot better. Some of the guys on the Cardinals have played in the World Series before and won the World Series, so have a different level of experience from us. But having the fresh experience from last year, what kind of know what to expect and we have to come in here and answer questions and how to prepare for the National League angle and all that stuff. Like I said before, a couple weeks ago, the biggest thing that we can do as players is keep is it routine and make sure that all the press and the distractions that are around don't take us out of our routine. Q. How did you discover cryotherapy and get into it? And how does it help you? C.J. WILSON: It helps with the cold weather, right? Yeah, the cryotherapy thing is cool, literally. I guess, boom. No, the Mavs were doing it. The Mavs were doing it during the playoffs, and obviously we have a big affinity for the Mavs in Dallas. There was an article in ESPN The Magazine about it, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I'm kind of an experimental guy, I'll go for the hyperbaric chamber, drink a new type of sports drink that's supposed to keep your blood sugar regulated. I'll do whatever. Because the 1 percent really at this level really is valuable. Q. What does it do for you? C.J. WILSON: It helps you recover. Basically you stand in this freezing can and cold air circulates around you. I did it a couple days ago. Went down to -295 or something. So 35 degrees should be no big deal, right? Although I didn't have to pitch when I got out of there, so it should be different. Q. Tony LaRussa was talking the other day, he's never seen a post-season like this with the starters going so short a time and the relievers taking on such a burden. Have you guys talked about that as starters? And is it something you're taking personally and really worried about, or is it just as a team, win, you don't care when you need to pitch? C.J. WILSON: I wouldn't say "worry" is a good word. You don't worry your way to the World Series; you have to win. A lot of -- like obviously Carpenter threw 240 innings or whatever it was that year, and I threw 200-something innings, as well. So we have the ability to go deep in the games, it's just, like, sometimes the game situation hasn't dictated that. The games have been close, but it's been like 6-7 or 3-3 in some of our games, and then boom, there's a grand slam or a four-run-inning. I don't know if we are better rested because of that, we haven't had to throw 125 pitches a game. You can look at it any way you want. The starting pitchers on our team, I can speak for us, and for Colby, we talked about it and said we're here to win, and however we have to win, it doesn't really matter. We don't really care. If we only get to throw five or six innings that's fine because our bullpen is awesome. Their bullpen is good, too. That's just the way it's been shaking out. Q. I think it was this event last year you were asked a lot of Cliff Lee questions and you made a lot of Cliff Lee answers. I'm interested in your reaction that morning when you wake up and he's not a Yankee, he's not a Ranger and he's in Philly, and whether you thought this was going to be a much harder task to get back to this point? C.J. WILSON: Well, there's no such thing as an easy task in professional sports, I guess, other than like putting on a uniform. That's where the ease ends, because you have such a long season, no matter who's on your team. As you guys have seen, the teams that were picked to be in the World Series, they're at home right now. You guys are all guilty of this, saying, hey, all these guys got these new acquisitions and made this big deal, but we got some new acquisitions, too. Adrian Beltre, Mike Napoli, those guys were huge for us, hit 30 home runs and they fit in really well. So I think we were able to not necessarily upgrade over Cliff, because Cliff is one of the premier pitchers in all of baseball, but we upgraded in other areas where we needed to upgrade, and that's -- in the long run, you have to address all aspects of the team, not just one player at a time. You know, but like I said, the starting pitchers this year, we carry the load, and I feel like Alexi, Colby, Matt, Derek and I all stepped up and improved over where we were last year to some degree, and that added to where we were at. Q. We're guilty of that, too -- C.J. WILSON: Right, you are guilty of that. Q. Did he have any lasting effect on your stats? C.J. WILSON: I don't know. You take a guy like Derek, Derek is a perfect example, right, he has -- he throws 97 miles an hour. He's got four pitches. He had all those pitches and all that velocity beforehand, but he was just young. Now it's his third year in the majors, so his experience naturally going to carry him to a different level. It's the same thing with Harrison and same thing with me. This is my second year starting so I'm going to develop on my own. Just like a 14-year-old kid is going to be bigger than a 12-year-old kid because he's growing and eating more vegetables, and that's how it goes. Q. Getting back to the World Series, historically is really a tough chore for any team. Coming into the season, was there a mindset, a focus, that type of thing, knowing that just because you were there last year that you might not get back this year? C.J. WILSON: I think because we went back last year and lost, a lot of us sat in the locker room after Game 5 against the Giants and we were really upset. We're like, this is not how we wanted it to go. Obviously it was a great season for us, last year and this year, despite whatever happens. Nobody expected us to go all the way here except for us. But you know, we are here to win, and that's what we've been doing all year, and the sting of losing last year is what carried us through the off-season and helped us take it to the next level I think in a lot of ways, and that energy and that focus that we share as a team is in large part because -- it's like the us-against-the-opinion thing or whatever. So the World Series is four wins. It's the first team that wins four games, obviously it's over. You know, we understand that. We might not win the first game, we might not win the third game, but we're going to try to win every game we play because every game is do or die. That's the way it goes. Q. When Berkman signed with the Cardinals over the Rangers, he made some comments about the Rangers, basically saying that he thought they would be mediocre this year. C.J. WILSON: Yeah, he addressed that before the season started, and then actually I just want to set this straight: I heard about it, I heard about his comments. I heard them live on the radio, and then I commented on it live and defended our organization and our team, and defended the Adrian Beltre signing and that kind of stuff. And Lance had a great first half. He was an All-Star. And when I got to the All-Star Game this year there was actually a note in my locker from Lance saying, "Hey, congratulations on you guys' success, I guess I was wrong. Not the first time." So we actually talked. I ran into him at breakfast a couple days later and we talked about it and he was really awesome. So I have no issues with what he said. Much like myself, I'm going to say what's on my mind. You guys know me by this point. So if I say something and it turns out to be wrong, then I've got to wear it. And they're in the World Series, we're in the World Series. I'm happy for him. He played great. He played a lot better than he did last year. So in that regard he stepped up to his end of the bargain and we stepped up to our end of the bargain and here we are, so it's actually kind of cool, actually. Q. The Cardinals have a deeper lineup with Berkman obviously. How do you approach a guy like Pujols? Is he as dangerous as he has been in the best? C.J. WILSON: I've never pitched to Albert, so I don't know. I can't really honestly say that there's one particular way to get a guy like that out. I made a joke the other day, yeah, I'll just throw it down the middle because I'm not going to tell you guys what my game plan is. But at the same time, you have to pitch to the whole lineup and you have to be conscious of the whole lineup. And obviously in the National League the pitchers bat, so you have to that factor in there as well. You have to be strategic. You can't just go there and try to be macho and throw the ball as hard as you can. I think you guys have seen that he's hit like 500 home runs or something like that, so it's not really a good idea. But with Lance and Holliday and Freese obviously, all those guys hitting together for power in the middle of the lineup. It's an American League lineup, just like ours is. It's the same way I have to navigate a Yankees' game or a Red Sox game or anything like that. Q. Along those same lines, have you seen another lineup that's so right-handed and switch-hitting dominant like the Cardinals are right now in the American League? C.J. WILSON: Off the top of my head I'm not really placing one. The Tigers' lineup pretty much the same way. They have a lot of really good right-handed hitters and then Victor Martinez is their switch-hitter extraordinaire. Our lineups are very similar in that regard. We have a bunch of really good hitters and they have a bunch of really good hitters and you have to attack each hitter individually. If you end up walking a bunch of guys and the bases are loaded, one of those dudes comes up and you have to pitch to him, that's when the game gets out of hand and gets ugly and that's what we saw obviously in the NLCS. Q. You mentioned that the inning totals this year of you and Carpenter, but when you get to this point, does fatigue play any factor in it because of the stage and the adrenaline? Do you burn out quicker in these type of games? Obviously a manager doesn't want to take out his starter after five innings. I was wondering if there's something that they notice in you that changes or is it a matter of they think the bullpen is better suited for it? C.J. WILSON: Well, the perfect example of how this is a weird situation is my Game 1 against the Tigers. You know, we had two rain delays, so that's all I could throw. They weren't going to let me go back out there after an hour and a half of rain or whatever it was. At that point, yeah, I only threw four and two thirds or whatever it was. If we would have had zero rain delays, I would have had a chance, because I didn't have that many pitches, to go however many innings I would have gone. I came back from the first rain delay, tried to do it, doesn't do very well. And the second rain delay hit and that was it. I wouldn't say there's any particular factor. It's a coin flip. If you have a good game or a bad game, the other team you're facing now is so good, there's not much margin for error because the pressure is on the manager in order to keep the score down. We have like five guys in the bullpen that can come out and throw at any inning, not counting the closer, and strike somebody out with a guy on. They're going to have a quick trigger. That's just the way it is. Tony did the same thing for St. Louis in their series, too. It's literally like two of the same teams playing each other. It's going to be kind of wacky. Q. Obviously you had a terrific regular season. What's the key for you to do it on this stage? Is it fastball command? First pitch strikes? What do you think? C.J. WILSON: I would say that there's no particular thing. I mean, if you throw the ball where you want it, then that's going to be your best result. It's not like you're going to throw harder, throw slower. I mean, I'm pretty much the same guy I was in August or September. It's just a matter of, like I said, you make a couple bad pitches and then a guy hits a home run, then that skews the numbers a little bit. If you take anybody for a three-start stretch or four-start stretch you never really know what you're going to get going ahead. That's why some guys make what they make because they go out and do it six, seven and eight years in a row like Roy Halladay. I would say that for me I don't feel any particular increase in nerves or whatever, like this start versus a normal start. It's just kind of like when I pitched against Halladay in May, I was excited I get to bat off, like, the best pitcher, you know what I mean? And I was like, I guess I'm going to have to lay a bunt down because we probably aren't going to be swinging for the fences against him. Against Carp it's the same thing. He's a phenomenal pitcher and he has been for a long time. I can't really afford to, like, work my way into the game. I've got to be on right from the first pitch. Q. Nolan said that you guys would win this in six games. Your thoughts? C.J. WILSON: I love Nolan's confidence in us. It's great. I haven't heard anything about that. Contrary to popular belief, players try to not pay attention to what people are saying about them during the situation because our focus is forward on doing our thing. But Nolan has had nothing but confidence in our organization since he took over, and I'll stand behind him whatever he said because he can beat people up. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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